The remaining days of the week followed each other wearily. During the interval, Lord Harry's friend carefully preserved the character of a model guest--he gave as little trouble as possible. Every morning after breakfast the doctor went away by the train. Every morning (with similar regularity) he was followed by the resolute Fanny Mere. Pursuing his way through widely different quarters of Paris, he invariably stopped at a public building, invariably presented a letter at the door, and was invariably asked to walk in. Inquiries, patiently persisted in by the English maid, led in each case to the same result. The different public buildings were devoted to the same benevolent purpose. Like the Hotel Dieu, they were all hospitals; and Mr. Vimpany's object in visiting them remained as profound a mystery as ever. Early on the last morning of the week the answer from Lord Harry's brother arrived. Hearing of it, Iris ran eagerly into her husband's room. The letter was already scattered in fragments on the floor. What the tone of the Earl's inhuman answer had been in the past time, that it was again now. Iris put her arms round her husband's neck. "Oh, my poor love, what is to be done?" He answered in one reckless word: "Nothing!" "Is there nobody else who can help us?" she asked. "Ah, well, darling, there's perhaps one other person still left," "Who is the person?" "Who should it be but your own dear self?" She looked at him in undisguised bewilderment: "Only tell me, Harry, what I can do?" "Write to Mountjoy, and ask him to lend me the money." He said it. In those shameless words, he said it. She, who had sacrificed Mountjoy to the man whom she had married, was now asked by that man to use Mountjoy's devotion to her, as a means of paying his debts! Iris drew back from him with a cry of disgust. "You refuse?" he said. "Do you insult me by doubting it?" she answered. He rang the bell furiously, and dashed out of the room. She heard him, on the stairs, ask where Mr. Vimpany was. The servant replied: "In the garden, my lord." Smoking a cigar luxuriously in the fine morning air, the doctor saw his excitable Irish friend hastening out to meet him. "Don't hurry," he said, in full possession of his impudent good-humour; "and don't lose your temper. Will you take my way out of your difficulties, or will you not? Which is it--Yes or No?" "You infernal scoundrel--Yes!" "My dear lord, I congratulate you." "On what, sir?" "On being as great a scoundrel as I am." CHAPTER XLI THE MAN IS FOUND. THE unworthy scheme, by means of which Lord Harry had proposed to extricate himself from his pecuniary responsibilities, had led to serious consequences. It had produced a state of deliberate estrangement between man and wife.